One Last Look
by Connor Asfadjnis
Summary: Gallifrey falls no more, but the Doctor has one last place to visit before he begins his search... even if he doesn't know it yet. TARDIS/Doctor if you're in the shipping mood.


The TARDIS spun through the Vortex like a leaf in the wind, her manic driver pirouetting and twirling around the console like a madman.

"We're going home, old girl!" he cried out. The console pulsed like a warm, energetic river just beneath his hands. "We'll find them. It doesn't matter how long. We'll see it again! _We're going home_!" The Doctor felt the happiness of his ship ebb through the psychic link.

"Let's do a flip, eh? Just for fun!" The Time Lord known as the Doctor laughed in near-ecstasy as he pulled a few levers and continued his mad sprinting dance across the room. The floor tilted dangerously, and the ground moved in exactly the way it shouldn't. The Doctor hastily flipped the same levers back to their original positions.

"No flipping. Flipping's bad. Sorry about that. Got a bit carried away." The warmth in the console returned, affection with more than a hint of amusement.

They flew like this for a while, the Vortex cocooning them, a river bringing them swiftly homeward. The Doctor finally tired and sank against the console, one hand still resting on the warm metal, head draped on top of it. "We'll find them," he repeated, running his hand across the surface unconsciously. "We'll find them."

The Doctor's manic grin was gone, a small smile in its place. His eyes were still joyous; or perhaps they just lacked the horrible guilt that always hung behind the iris, a monster that reared its head when the Doctor was sure that only the TARDIS could see.

Their passage slowed into a drift. The Vortex streamed past them (or the other way around, or both, or neither) in a million flashes of light, each a moment in the momentous history of the Universe. The TARDIS could see all of it, every possible timeline and occurrence all jumbled up together. Her brief time as a human only intensified her pity for those who couldn't see it in all its glory (they couldn't even see radio waves, poor things).

Seeing everything that could be all at once was as blinding as it was enlightening, however, and things only truly became clear when they were just about to happen. And now, what she saw made the warmth ebb from the Doctor's hand still lay.

He sat up when the warm affection was replaced by cold. "Is something wrong?" he asked in Circular Gallifreyan, the words like a lullaby and a song. "What do you see?"

Oh, he knew her so well.

…

The Doctor stepped outside almost before the TARDIS had finished materializing. His foot crunched into the debris, and some intuition made him flinch backwards.

His second look was more cautious. He placed his foot down carefully. _Crunch_. The sky was dark, and the Doctor did not know if there were any light here for his eyes to adjust to.

"Hold on," he said softly, sensing the gloom that hung over this place like a vice. He disappeared into the TARDIS, emerging again only when he had found a flashlight (which was, according to the Doctor, strangely more efficient than the lighting orb of the 27th century). He swept the beam around the area. It fell on jagged pieces of metal, some obviously of Time Lord make.

"How far are we?" he asked his ship. "Far along, I'd guess." He scanned the sky, not knowing why he was still talking, not caring. "End of the Universe far?"

The TARDIS pulsed again.

He took another step into the debris, undaunted even when another piece broke under his foot. As he ran the beam around and around, he could tell that there was on defining feature of them all; every single piece of wreckage was _immense_.

"Oh," he said. "Oh."

_Bigger on the inside but not anymore_

This was a graveyard of TARDISes.

He took another step further. The debris loomed on either side of him. He remembered learning about sites like these in the Academy, but he hadn't seen any on this scale before.

_On occasion, TARDISes that have grown particularly attached to their owner or owners will end their own life once their pilots are dead, sometimes in the heart of a star or other times flinging themselves to the end of the universe_

He ran his hand along the TARDIS's frame. He felt only melancholic cool. He scanned the darkness again with his other hand. On either side, the massive hulks of dead TARDISes. Beneath his feet were the smaller items; various bits and bobs of consoles, a door here or there. Most were blatantly Gallifreyan, since most Time Lords never bothered to leave Gallifrey, but others were of alien and strange complexion, most from Skaro, though the Doctor was surprised to find a few disguised as various structures from Earth.

Hesitantly at first, then with more purpose, the Time Lord ventured into the graveyard.

…

_Raveynahdurleptorin_

_Fourth Regeneration_

_Leaves behind husband, two children_

_Died in the Time War_

_Darenekrdelbyen_

_Fifth Regeneration_

_Leaves behind wife, three children, brother_

_Died in the Time War_

The Doctor took a deep, shuddering breath. The sun had come up, shining through the thin atmosphere with a faint red glow, and once he had light he had noticed messages scrawled on the TARDISes. Messages from the long dead; insurance, in case they were to die in the war. They had not been read for four hundred years.

He knew the conditions of this planet were unhealthy, but he ignored his biology and the concerned mental nudges from his own TARDIS. Almost every piece of wreckage he looked at had had at least one epitaph scrawled into it desperately.

The sun had time to rise and fall before the Doctor finally returned to the TARDIS. He slumped against the door. He was silent as he regarded the darkening sky.

"Thank you," he said finally. "This couldn't have been easy. But you're right. Before we can move forward… we have to look back." The thin wind whistled through the debris. The surface of the TARDIS was faintly warm.

The Doctor turned and snapped his fingers, and the doors opened without a sound. "C'mon, you sexy thing, you," he said, the grin returning. "Let's go find them."

The last sound the lonely graveyard heard was the closing of a door, and the steady, alien sound of, for the first time, one of its denizens departing.

**This is just a short thing I came up with after the Day of the Doctor (and OH MY GOD did this take longer to write than it should have) (also, the Day of the Doctor was awesome). **

**I've got to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of Gallifrey coming back. The whole idea of the Doctor being the last of his species was awesome. But the show must move on, and I'm not one to judge things before they come to fruition. Plus, I'm sure they can come up with some awesome story ideas from this. **

**But this isn't a blog, so I'll give the obligatory "Read and Review" and let you beautiful people be on your merry ways. **

**P.S. If you don't hear from me before Christmas… Merry Christmas!**


End file.
